Indonesian officials say a large piece of the wreckage from the crashed Lion Air flight has been found

Search and Rescue personnel prepare for recovered bodies bag containing remains of a passenger as they recover bodies and personal items from Lion Air flight JT 610 at the Tanjung Priok port on October 30, 2018 in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images

Indonesia's military chief believes a search and rescue team has found part of the wreckage of a Lion Air plane that crashed into the sea on Monday.

The search team had the location coordinates but now had to confirm it was the fuselage.

It is still unclear what caused the plane to crash just minutes after takeoff. All 189 people on board are believed to have died in the crash.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's military chief believes a search and rescue team has found part of the body of a Lion Air plane that crashed into the sea with 189 people on board, he told a television channel on Wednesday.

"We strongly believe that we have found a part of the fuselage of JT610," Hadi Tjahjanto told TV One, referring to the flight operated by the Indonesian budget carrier.

The search team had the location coordinates but now had to confirm it was the fuselage, he added.

Indonesia has deployed "pinger locators" to try to locate the plane's blackboxes, as the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder are known, at the crash site.

"Yesterday afternoon, the team had heard a ping sound in a location at 35 meters depth," Haryo Satmiko, the deputy chief of the national transport safety panel, told Reuters, referring to a depth of 115 feet.

"This morning, at 5 a.m., the team has gone back to dive at the location."